The Guy Fox Blog

  #9. London Children’s Map (January 2006) Winning the Guardian Award was an ‘honourtunity’; it was an honour , of course, but also an opportunity . And of course, it was the grease that got us unstuck! No excuses.  No more ‘ Big If ’!   During 2005, we spent a bit of time working ‘under the hood’ on the organisation itself. Lawyers at Winston & Strawn helped us re-form the Guy Fox charity into a non-profit social enterprise.   In November 2005, we moved into a basement office, which had once been a wine cellar. It had no heat; it was furnished with desks and shelves that had been donated by volunteers or that we’d found in the street; it was a cold, damp, dark space – but it was our cold, damp, dark space where we would make our vision a reality.    In between meetings with lawyers and negotiating our lease, Kourtney had completed the London Children’s Map . She showed the proof to buyers at Tate Modern, the Natural History Museum and St Paul’s Cathed...

#8. Guardian Charity Award (2004)   Previously on ‘A History of a Charity in Twenty Objects’…    We were stuck. We won’t rehash it (you can read it for yourself here ), but in a nutshell:  We needed £5,000.   We’d tried everything we could think of – applied for grants, developed proposals, submitted pitches, we’d even spent a day at IKEA Croydon with a donation bucket – and we’d come up with nothing. In fact, we were slightly worse off because our train fares to Croydon and the donation bucket had cost more than we’d collected.   Frustrated and dismayed, the Board of Trust called a special meeting to discuss options. Their conclusion: It was time to call it quits.  Ding dangit.   We just couldn’t see our way over, under or through. We were all devastated.   Lori Bean, a good, good friend and smart cookie, took Kourtney to Wagamama; over a steaming bowl of chili chicken ramen, she gave her an attitude adjustment:  “Do you have to pu...

#7. Grant Applications and Rejections (2001 to… well, Infinity & Beyond!) In 2004, we got stuck. We'd continued to apply for project grants. There were rejections here and there, which always hurt, but we were mostly successful in securing grants for new projects. The thing was, project grants could be used SOLELY for project costs. Nothing else. Project costs and that’s it. If a project required a baby elephant to meet its objectives, then we could purchase a baby elephant*.  But we couldn’t buy a stapler or a rubbish bin or even a ream of paper unless it was approved in the project budget. Don’t even think about paying for overhead costs like office space, utilities or salaries. (In the interest of full disclosure, funders would provide funding for overhead costs within a project. It was called ‘Full Cost Recovery’. In your application, you could request ‘50% of overhead costs for the duration of the project’ and, if the f...

#5. Guy Fox Baseball Cap (circa 2002) This tired old baseball cap doesn't look like much – especially after years of wear – but it helped inspire a GREAT BIG LESSON for us…. in  listening . One day in early 2002, Kourtney was at the John Harvard Library, wearing this cap  (must’ve been a Bad Hair Day). She glanced up from her research to find a young boy standing by the table. He asked, "You know about Guy Fox?" Amazed that HE knew about Guy Fox, she could only manage a tacit nod. He continued, "We get his magazines at school, but I can't read them ‘cause I have a…uh… I struggle… with my reading." “Maybe I can do something about that,” she responded. Satisfied with that, he disappeared. Hmmm… That conversation got us thinking: What could we do for children who struggled to read our magazines? How could we make our work more accessible? Time to do some learning! We contacted the Royal National Institute for the Blind and the British...

#4. ‘History on the Sly’ Magazines (2000 to 2004) ‘Guy Fox History on the Sly’ was officially launched at the new Tate Modern on Friday 14 th July 2000. That sounds impressive, right? A launch event at Tate Modern!  And we s’pose it was. But it didn’t start out that way.  Let’s back up a bit.  Just before the first magazine went to press, Manjeet Edwards of the Peabody Trust called Kourtney and encouraged her to hold an event to celebrate the magazine.  Kourtney looked at her budget – the same one that had not stretched to meet the delivery costs (See Object #3 ). There was about £35 left, certainly not enough for a party! Food and drinks, maybe, but a venue? No way. Another ‘hmmmmm…’ moment (there’ve been a lot of those over the years).  And then a crazy idea (there’ve also been a lot of  those  over the years!): What if Tate Modern would allow us to hold a launch event?   The thought bubbles...

#3. Blue Trolley (May 2000) What you see here is our Transportation Department – our battered, beloved blue trolley.  When Kourtney applied for that grant from the Peabody Trust ( Object #2 ), she included a budget. Having never done a funding budget before, there were bound to be some mistakes.   Indeed, that budget wasn’t even a twig compared to the robust, well-researched budgets that we submit in our funding applications now. It guesstimated the various line items and confidently stated: “I will re-work / re-design the project to accommodate the funding which is made available to me.” For Distribution Costs, Kourtney guessed ‘£200 to £300’. After all, how much could it cost to send out 5,000 magazines to 65 primary schools? Well. A lot more than you might expect.  (In fact, distribution is one of our most expensive activities. Often,  SENDING  a Guy Fox book is double the cost of  PRINTING  one! ) As we said, there w...

#2. Letter from Peabody Trust (March 23rd, 2000) With those sample cartoons ( Object #1 ), the rest was easy: Establish a charity, raise some money, recruit volunteers and start doing our work in the local community — and the rest is history!  Right? Wrong.  Not even close.  We took the ‘scenic route’. In fact, in 1998, Kourtney wasn’t thinking about charity work at all — just work! She put those cartoons in her portfolio and submitted Guy Fox to lots of London children’s publications. “Nope,” said Kids Time Out. “No, thank you,” said the Funday Times. The rejection letters piled up.   Kourtney even received a rejection from the New Statesman, which was bizarre because she hadn’t sent them anything! (But that’s another story.) Finally, there was a ‘Not-Quite-No’, from TwoCan Publications, who didn’t want the Guy Fox cartoons, but who offered Kourtney illustration work on their magazines. Kourtney settled into a routine as a freelance illustrator — wo...

#1. Drawings of Guy Fox (Autumn 1998) These pen and ink drawings are the very first iterations of the Guy Fox character. As you can see, he's gained a little weight since then – mostly in his nose! These days, we draw him in pencil, add the black lines with an old-fashioned dip pen and ink, and then scan the drawing so that we can colour it in Photoshop.  But back in 1998, when Kourtney Harper created Guy Fox, she and her husband were relocating from Chapel Hill, North Carolina to London and living out of a suitcase – no computer, no scanner, no software. So when inspiration struck, Kourtney popped in to see Mr Poole at Cornelissen .  Mr Poole was one of those living institutions who can only exist in a place like London. Dressed in pinstriped trousers, waistcoat, pocket watch with fob and immaculately-polished shoes, and wielding a walking stick that doubled as a grappling device, Mr Poole sold pen and ink drawing supplies. Nib holders, nibs, brushes and in...